[COM] Southern Expressway Duplication | $445m | 22km

[rhino]

What we NEED is actually quite simple. We need a non stop North - South corridor of 3 lanes or more, with no traffic lights, frieght/train/tram crossings.

this can never happen since the anzac underpass is 2 lanes, as is the cross road overpass... south road will always be 2 lanes unless they decide to spend a shit load of money and redo all the over/under passes, tram overpasss and future tunnels and also buy all the land along south road.

Actually, it can. The third lane will be the one that becomes the slip lane at interchanges, while two lanes carry on through the underpass or over the overpass. Beyond the underpass/overpass, once the slip lane has re-joined, it can be 3 lanes again. The tram overpass would be the problem, but it's not impossible to fix. The bigger problem would be buying up enough land to fit the extra lanes.

Really, so long as you can get a non-stop trip for the length of the road, does it matter if it's 2 lanes and 60km/hour? It would probably work better than a 100km/hr road that has interchange traffic backing up on to it. What's the distance from Darlington to Regency Road? If it takes you 20 minutes, are you going to complain?

[AG]

I've deleted/edited posts that are not directly related to the duplication of the Southern Expressway. There are other appropriate threads that already exist for some of these topics. If not, please make a new one. Anyone who does not stay on the topic from now on will receive a warning.

[Shuz]

The tram overpass has been designed to accomodate for a wider South Road to a capacity of 4x4 lanes.

On the eastern side there are three bridge spans, one bridge span where South Road currently runs underneath and on the western side there are four bridge spans. The "gradient" of the overpass is already accomodated for in the lead up ramps and three bridge spans; the fourth span actually levels out - The additional bridge span is there so to carry the northbound traffic of a wider South Road. The underpass can carry 3x3 if you take out the bicycle lanes and reduce the lane widths marginally.

[drsmith]

The following image is from inside one of the twin tunnels that form part of the Graham Farmer Freeway under Northbridge just north of the Perth CBD.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&sour ... 114.5,,0,5

While currently marked for two traffic lanes it can accomodate three.

[fabricator]

The need for the southbound bridge over the junction is a bit puzzling, though I'm guessing it's so that traffic from Flinders Drive to the Expressway doesn't have so much lane changing to do.

Its so the ambulances don't have to battle to change lanes, besides which, it can't add much to the total cost of those bridges anyway.

[zap brannigan]

well if dunstan had not totally opposed the MATS plan in the 60's and played politics with out strategic infrastructure planning all would be well in adelaide.

Oh please! I suspect I've told you this before zap, but it was Tonkin who killed off the MATS plan - he sold off the land. Stop trying to sell us crap.

the mats plan was dead and buried after the libs lost the 1970 election on this issue... freeways had become taboo in adelaide and no politician was allowed to mention them.

the point i'm making is that there were many good aspects of the mats plan apart from the freeways which the labour govt should have embraced in the 1970's.
240 miles of arterial road widening and 20 rail crossing grade separations would have been great for adelaide.

what dunstan should have done was start to upgrade south road back then and make it a 3/4 lane highway thru the western suburbs. he could have started buying up all the land along south road (much cheaper than doing it now) and gradually widening the road.

[rhino]

what dunstan should have done was start to upgrade south road back then and make it a 3/4 lane highway thru the western suburbs. he could have started buying up all the land along south road (much cheaper than doing it now) and gradually widening the road.

So because Dunstan didn't do it, we're stuck with what we've got now? Why didn't Steele Hall do it? David Tonkin? Dean Brown? John Ohlsen? Rob Kerrin?

[zap brannigan]

Overpasses are generally better in commercial and industrial areas, but in residential areas they're visually intrusive and too noisy.

this would be true in the leafy eastern suburbs but the western suburbs along south road are anything but... mostly it's light industrial, warehouses and lots of slums so a giant concrete structure wont be such an eyesore as it would be in st peters.

Much of that is through a residential area, where an overpass would be far too disruptive.

the raa have costed a tunnel thru this area at $2B... and probably more allowing for cost blow outs. an overpass should be about half that.

[zap brannigan]

what dunstan should have done was start to upgrade south road back then and make it a 3/4 lane highway thru the western suburbs. he could have started buying up all the land along south road (much cheaper than doing it now) and gradually widening the road.

So because Dunstan didn't do it, we're stuck with what we've got now? Why didn't Steele Hall do it? David Tonkin? Dean Brown? John Ohlsen? Rob Kerrin?

basically yes!... decisions made 40 years ago on our infrastructure have long term impacts. that's why adelaide needs a long term strategic plan and not a political football.

steele hall was going to do it with the mats plan but he lost the election. dean brown was too busy saving the state from bankruptcy and selling off etsa to bother with transport infrastructure.

[Norman]

Quite a few properties north of ANZAC Highway along South Road are listed as "significant" or are heritage listed, which makes any changes to South Road the more difficult.

[Prince George]

I'm confused, why are we feeding the troll?

[DM8]

Wow - when I first saw this thread yesterday, it was just the one post - now up to 4 pages!

Certainly will be a win for me, as I'll never again need to use South Road between Old Noarlunga and Darlington (although given that I live out at Modbury, it's a rarity for me to head out there anyway).

Personally, I'm not holding my breath about it actually happening until works commence - the end of next year is a long way off.

Who can spell "backflip"? I remember very recently when Pat Conlon was interviewed by The Advertiser that the duplication of the Southern Expressway was "too expensive" and "not a priority", blaming the Libs, blah blah blah. It seemed it was going to stay as is until beyond 2020. Glad to see committments from both sides.

well if dunstan had not totally opposed the MATS plan in the 60's and played politics with out strategic infrastructure planning all would be well in adelaide.

Oh please! I suspect I've told you this before zap, but it was Tonkin who killed off the MATS plan - he sold off the land. Stop trying to sell us crap.

Umm... nope... it was John Bannon who sold off the land. Whilst in the preceding years, modifications were made to the width of the land reserved for the north-south corridor, the corridor itself remained until 1983 - the year after Tonkin lost to Bannon.

[rhino]

Umm... nope... it was John Bannon who sold off the land. Whilst in the preceding years, modifications were made to the width of the land reserved for the north-south corridor, the corridor itself remained until 1983 - the year after Tonkin lost to Bannon.

"...In Early 1980 the Tonkin Government won office and the Minister for Transport, Michael Wilson, announced a commitment by his Government to sell off much of the land acquired for possible transport corridors. ...

...Much debate continued about the other proposed freeways in MATS, particularly the North-South Freeway. In February 1982 Wilson announced that the corridor would be halved in width and truncated south of Darlington. The idea of a high speed freeway was abandoned, although a corridor from Dry Creek to Darlington was to remain as a concept pending consideration of a redesigned, narrower road. ...

...Then, in June 1983, the North-South Corridor was completely abandoned - the disposal of land eesnetial to the project making it impossible to revivie should the need emerge. "

Source: http://www.ozroads.com.au/SA/freeways.htm

Okay, Bannon sold off the remaining half-width corridor which could not hold a freeway anyway. It was Tonkin's government that killed the freeway.

This will probably get deleted because it has nought to do with the thread subject, so I'll leave this topic alone now.

[drsmith]

The need for the southbound bridge over the junction is a bit puzzling, though I'm guessing it's so that traffic from Flinders Drive to the Expressway doesn't have so much lane changing to do.

Its so the ambulances don't have to battle to change lanes, besides which, it can't add much to the total cost of those bridges anyway.

Ambulances entering South Road southbound could be controlled by the signals at Flinders Drive. Merging therefore would not be a problem with a single overpass. Even with the two overpasses as shown, northbound ambulances on South Road still have to merge with one lane of traffic and navigate across another two to get into the right turn lanes into Flinders Drive.

It would be interesting to see what's planned immediately to the north. At the northern end of the render there are 7 lanes northbound and this is not far from the signalised Flinders Drive T-junction. There also appears to be a centre barrier in the middle of the northbound overpass.

[Shuz]

I think honestly you guys are reading too much into the "render". It's more of a copy&paste job done by some journalist at the Advertiser offices, but obviously a pretty good one at that. I'd expect the final interchange design to be quite different.